Video games seem like something to play casually and to relax and enjoy yourself but this is actually not as it appears to be. Much like any relaxing activity such as bowling, golf and fishing; it gets turned into a competitive event. Video games are much the same thing. Pro-circut events like MLG have come out that has made competitive gaming a sport. Major games such as Halo, Gears of War and Call of Duty are featured and pros from all around the world come to compete at these events.

In the video game world a schism was created, a rift that divides gamers and casual players. Gamers expect people to abide by the unspoken rules of video games. These unspoken rules keep people from using cheap weapons and tactics which would otherwise make the game unbearable if all were to use them. Specifically tactics such as camping and the use of high damage weapons such as rocket launchers and the type. Friends of mine that attend MLG events yearly would rather die (in game of course) than to knife someone in COD unless they were out of bullets.

Have you ever been playing a game like Call of Duty when everything is going fine for the first couple of games with a group that you are currently with. No one is using shotguns, RPGs or anything of the short. All of a sudden one guy comes in and all he uses is a shotgun; the next thing you know everyone is running around knifing people, using noob tubes, camping in corners and the whole game goes into a downward spiral. Explosions are going off everywhere, glitches are being exploited and no one lives for more than a few seconds. It’s just an overall very unpleasant experience and it just takes one guy breaking the unspoken rule to turn the game upside down. The problem with this unspoken rule is that it really only applies to higher caliber players that are more or less competitive. The people who are causal players and just there to have fun could care less about these rules. This usually leads to the all too well known trash talking about how someone is a noob and so on and things become heated.

Hopefully since online console gaming is a pretty knew phenomenon there will be some control for this in the future. Maybe individual lobbies can be created with more strict rules for competitive gamers as well as a lobby for casual gamers where everything goes. I see that there are already certain rules being put into place for certain games where certain weapons are not allowed to be used in certain lobbies, people are not allowed to enter other lobbies if their aim assist is on and so on. Hopefully more of this will become prevalent and each gamer can find a lobby that fits their satisfaction.